She stared at him. Not at the bit of tree he was twirling between his fingertips, but right at him, because obviously the pine needles were a mere pinprick compared to the agony he was causing her.
‘Just say it,’ he prompted her. ‘Get it all out. It’s not as if I can’t figure out what’s going through your head. You’d like me to sod off and emigrate to Australia or something, or go and find someone else to hit on, anything that doesn’t involve you or Xane.’
She pursed her lips.
‘What happened to our agreement, eh? Actually, never mind that, what happened to us being friends, people who care about each other, who talk and listen to each other? I’ve been hanging with my old band-mates for the last few weeks. I thought you might like to hear about it. It was weird being in a proper recording studio and working with a whole set of pros for the first time. Fucking awesome too, but a steep learning curve. Hopefully, though, it means I won’t look like a complete klutz next to the rock legends I’m going to be recording with next. Oh, and Lykke says “Hello” by the way.’
She sucked her bottom lip hard enough to leach the colour from it, but otherwise didn’t respond. It made him want to shake her so hard she rattled.
‘Dani,’ he snapped instead. ‘For fuck’s sake, just talk to me. Can’t we sort this out? I mean, I thought it was sorted, so what changed?’ He stared at her, pleading with his eyes. ‘Really, what did I do? Why was it OK three weeks ago, but now it isn’t?’
She hunched herself up and wrapped her arms around her knees. Deep frown lines wrinkled her brow. He hated pressing her. Hated that he was causing her distress, but he didn’t understand. He just wanted answers.
She sniffed hard.
‘Please. Say something. Just tell me where I stand. I’m so sick of being in limbo.’
‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ Her voice was muffled as she was speaking into her knees. ‘I thought I could, but now I’m not sure. Halmstad wasn’t a magical solution. It was just one blip in time.’ She looked up at him, and her pretty eyes were rimmed with tears. ‘Xane’s the only good thing that’s ever happened to me. Can you blame me for wanting to keep him to myself?’
He shook his head.
‘I don’t want to share. I don’t really see why I should have to. But then I see the way he looks at you, and I know that no matter how much I want to keep him to myself, that’s never going to be the reality, and that’s before we get on to the hundred million fans he has in the world.’ She sniffed again and wiped at her eyes. ‘It nearly killed me when I found out that he was attracted to men. I couldn’t believe that, out of all the possible people in the world I could have fallen for, it had to be someone who was bisexual.’
He didn’t quite get why that was an issue.
‘My dad walked out on my mum and me when I was eleven, if you didn’t know,’ she explained. ‘He ran off with our neighbour’s son. So you see, it’s hard for me not to believe Xane’s going to run off with you.’
All right, that at least made sense. ‘Has Xane been any different with you since I’ve been around? Any less loving? Any less eager to get you into bed?’
She shook her head.
‘You have nothing to fear from me, Dani. Not a thing.’
A pale glitter of hope shone in her eyes at this, but her mouth retained a downward cast. ‘I’d like to believe that was true. I can’t convince myself of it yet.’
‘How can I help?’
Her brows furrowed. ‘I’m not sure. I’d quite like to stick my head in the sand and only raise it again when this has all blown over, except I know it won’t. You’re not going to up and leave, but the alternative, saying it’s OK, and letting him be with you too, that feels like I’d be deliberately walking in front of a firing squad.’
‘Oh, Dani.’ He put his arm around her shoulder, and leaned their heads together. For a moment she stiffened and he expected a rebuff, but astonishingly and pleasingly it did come.
‘I love him, Luthor. I love him so damned much it’s probably not good for me.’
‘I love him too, and I’m not going to apologise for that. Leastways, I want to be allowed to love him. He’s not really willing to let me in while he thinks it’s going to hurt you. So I’m trapped, and it sucks. I know it’s a situation of my own making, but it still sucks.’
She astonished him by closing her hand over the top of his, so that their fingers were entwined. It was the sort of gesture he might anticipate from a friend, but they weren’t really that any more. ‘You could choose to walk away, as you would presumably if you’d discovered he was married.’
‘To do that now, I’d have to walk away from Black Halo too. That’d be giving up my two biggest dreams in one go, not to mention a sizeable income and a shot at real fame.’ He hoped she understood why he didn’t want to do that.
He guessed she did, and didn’t have an answer to the conundrum, because they fell into another silence.
‘Will you tell me honestly what happened last night?’ she asked after a short while. ‘I know that something did, because he was so turned on, and it wasn’t due to anything I did.’
‘Dani.’ Luthor gently reached out and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. They were so close now he could smell the vanilla scent of her skin, and feel her warmth. ‘I hadn’t seen him in three weeks, and I just wanted some reassurance that everything was still good between us. We kissed, nothing more. I promise you.’
‘You got him that worked up with a kiss?’ Her tone of voice scaled an octave.
‘It might sound unlikely, but it’s the truth. He pushed me away.’
He covered his eyes with his hand a moment. Then he drew his fingertip and thumb together so that they met on the bridge of his nose. ‘I wanted him to call you, and get you to join us.’
Since they were properly talking, he wanted to get as much straightened out and into the open as possible.
‘So I could watch?’
‘So you could join us. I don’t only want him, Dani. I want a relationship with you too, and you know that.’
She shook her head in a way that seemed to make her whole body quake. ‘That’s not what you want. You want him.’
‘I haven’t only wanted Xane since Paris.’ Hell, he’d concocted plenty of fantasies about the three of them getting it on together to know exactly how fascinated he was with not just getting into her pants but sharing his time with her. ‘Dani, I want the three of us to be lovers. I know you think I’m just saying that, but I assure you I’m not. You turn me on just as much as Xane does.’
‘No, I don’t,’ she snorted incredulously. ‘That’s an enormous whopper. He’s Mister Alpha, sex on a stick, and I’m a ladybird.’
‘A very attractive one.’
She shook her head.
‘Why’s it so hard for you to believe?’
‘You fancy me.’ She gave a mocking laugh.
‘Yes, actually. Mister sex-on-a-stick Geist fancies you, so why the hell is it such a weird idea that I or any other man might be attracted to you too?’
Doubt flashed through her eyes. OK, he’d got her stumped with that one. She ran her tongue along the edge of her teeth. Then pulled her hand free of his.
‘Shit!’ he muttered. ‘Don’t run away, please.’
‘Luthor, I don’t want you to want me. You just confuse me.’
‘You do realise that’s not how desire works.’
‘Please don’t use me as a means of getting to Xane.’
That made no sense whatsoever. She was like a porcupine to Xane’s koala. If he was going to make a bid for one of them by coming on to the other, it wouldn’t be this way around.
‘Why is me wanting you so objectionable?’
‘Because I don’t fancy you.’
He’d have been hurt by that statement if he actually believed it. But he’d seen how she looked at him. He knew there was more than friendship between them, even if that friendship was strained to the limits at the present.
/> ‘Is that so? There’s not even a smidgen of attraction buried in a corner somewhere that might turn into something if you gave it some attention?’
‘I’m in love with Xane.’
‘What has that got to do with anything?’
Her agitation prompted her to push up onto her feet. Apparently whatever damage she’d done to her ankle was now fixed, because she paced a few steps away from him, only to turn around and come back. She looked down at him, for he’d remained sitting.
‘Everything. I can’t love two men.’
‘Why not?’ He was being naughty, challenging all her beliefs like this, but frankly she had some weird ideas that needed challenging. ‘Why do you think you can only give your love to one person? Do you have a limited amount?’
He could see the cogs inside her head turning, trying to figure out if she believed that.
‘What happens in big families, if that’s the case? Do parents have to ration out packets of love to each child? Of course they don’t.’
‘I can’t be attracted to more than one man,’ she repeated, but he could see he had her worried. The statement was meant to solidify her stance, but actually it sounded more like a plea for him to please understand and back off, and not make her think about this.
Luthor rose to his feet. ‘Kiss me,’ he said.
‘What? No.’
‘Prove to me that there’s no glimmer of attraction between us, no tiny forgotten seed that might grow into something bigger.’
‘There isn’t.’
He half-turned away from her. ‘You’re such a fucking liar.’
‘Don’t you dare call me that!’
Damn, she was beautiful in her indignation. It made him want to reach out and prove his point, but forcing himself would only give her a reason to be petty.
‘Liar. You’re the biggest fucking liar, Dani Fosbrook. You know why, because you lie to yourself. You claim you feel nothing, but we both know that’s not true. You’ve feasted your eyeballs on me on numerous occasions.’
‘Like when?’
‘Roskilde for starters, in the shower block. Remember that?’
He’d never seen anyone turn pink so fast.
‘I … nothing happened. Xane was there.’
She could bluster all she liked – he knew that she knew he’d caught her out. ‘It wasn’t Xane you were gawping at though, was it?’
‘You were naked. It was a shock, that’s all.’
‘You drank me down like I was double chocolate milkshake.’
Every inch of her exposed skin was red now, not only her cheeks but the semi-circle of flesh above her bust too.
‘Own it, Dani. I don’t have a problem with the fact you were ogling me. I don’t have a problem with the fact you did the same thing when I was naked and making out with Xane either. You saw something you liked, and you appreciated it. I just wish you would stop pretending that’s a reason to push me away. Admit it, you’re as scared of being attracted to me as you are of the possibility of losing Xane to me.’
She took another backwards step, misjudged the lie of the land and would have fallen, had he not reached out and caught her. ‘Dani.’ He held her, savouring all the soft curves pressed against his body, and the way his arousal tickled in his loins, making him hard. ‘Let’s just try this, shall we?’
She raised a finger and covered his lips, attempting to silence him.
Luthor kissed her fingertip, which made her drop her hand back down to her side as quickly as gravity would allow. She was really quite startlingly beautiful when she was this wound up. Her eyes sparkled with passion, and the way she puckered her lips made him want to reach in, grab hold and kiss her hard. He’d bet his whole drumkit that she tasted so goddamned sweet it’d be like sipping nectar. The muscles in his groin twitched in excitement at the thought of not just kissing her lips, but exploring the beautifully curvaceous contours of her body, and maybe – hell, yes, maybe – pinning her against the pine tree at her back and proving to her that Xane wasn’t the only man on the planet, or even this island, who could get her heart racing.
‘I want to kiss you. I really want to kiss you.’
She shook her head in a tight fashion that meant it barely moved, but her whole body shook. They had chemistry. He could feel it. ‘Please, Luthor, don’t. Don’t follow through on that look.’
‘Why not? Are you scared Xane won’t approve? He’s not going to have a problem with this.’
‘He’s watching us. Xane is watching us.’
If Luthor hadn’t been set on this course, then now he was. His lips touched hers. It was a mere graze of a kiss, not the full-on version he wanted to give her. It lasted a mere fraction of a second, which was still long enough to realise he wanted a second helping.
Dani stared at him wide-eyed. ‘Oh, God!’
‘Again?’
That wasn’t even funny. He couldn’t. What was she doing? She stood there like a rabbit in the headlights and let him kiss her again, in a way that made her sigh, and washed arousal right through her preposterously tensed frame.
Luthor’s tongue teased the swell of her lower lip. ‘I want you, Dani. Don’t doubt it.’
Horribly confused, she pushed away from him. ‘You shouldn’t have done that. I’m going back to the house.’
‘Dani, don’t go.’ He gave her a puppy-dog look through his curtain of blond hair.
She had to. She didn’t know how to deal with this.
‘That’s the same damn thing.’
‘It’s not even vaguely the same thing.’
Luthor let her stomp a few metres away before he caught up with her and fell into step beside her.
‘If you were thinking of saying something, just don’t,’ she snapped.
He held his tongue, at least for a few seconds.
‘What are you giving Xane for his birthday? I’m totally stumped.’
Dani stopped in the middle of the path and looped her long hair back behind her ears. It wasn’t that she didn’t welcome the change of topic, but … How come he could so easily wrong-foot her? ‘I’ve a few little things, like a mug, and some jewellery, nothing terribly exciting.’
He bowed his head, which made his long hair tumble over his face, completely obscuring his eyes. She wasn’t sure how he would be able to see the path ahead if they started moving again, so she stayed still.
‘I guess I’ll have to ask Spook for ideas when he gets back, and hope I can get next-day delivery on something.’
‘As long as you don’t think I’m going to help tie a ribbon around your cock.’
A snort of laughter erupted from both his nose and mouth. ‘There’s a nice fantasy. I’m not sure which bit of it would be the best, even – the tying or the untying?’
‘Don’t joke about it.’
‘I’m not, I’m getting horny.’
Dani poked him. ‘That’s not actually funny.’
‘I said I wasn’t joking.’
She wished he wouldn’t look at her like that, as if he could see into her thoughts and make better sense of the jumble they were in than she could herself.
‘What are you so afraid of, Dani? Why won’t you let me take you both to bed?’
‘I’m not that brave,’ she said, and realised it was the most honest thing she’d said all day. ‘What if I actually like it?’
He looked deeply puzzled. ‘I rather hoped you would like it.’
‘I mean, what if I like what you do to me more than what Xane does?’
‘You won’t, but, even if you did, that wouldn’t necessarily mean it was an issue.’
‘I’ll let you touch him,’ she said, making a snap decision. Maybe if she gave him Xane, he’d give her some space. ‘You can make out. You can do it now. We can go and find him, and you can have sex.’
Luthor’s eyes narrowed to slits. ‘Don’t imagine I don’t know what you’re doing. I’m not going to say no, but don’t imagine this is going to change anything. I’ll still want you too, e
ven while I’m fucking your lean, mean, sexy pussycat.’
Dani swallowed the hard lump that had formed in her throat. ‘I’m just going to watch, Luthor. You don’t get to touch me. You have to agree to that, and if I say stop at any point, you have to stop.’
‘Deal.’ He offered her his hand to shake, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch him. If she did, she might end up slipping her arms around his waist, or, God forbid, actually tasting his lips again.
‘I don’t think this is going to be nearly as painful as you anticipate.’
He had to be kidding. It was excruciating already.
Chapter 11
Xane ran back to the house, and hurtled through the lounge to the kitchen, hurdling Rock Giant’s legs in his determination to get back to Dani ASAP. The big guy had his laptop perched on his knee and was upending the remains of a bag of tortilla chips into his mouth.
‘Damn! Where’s the fire? Why are you in such a goddamned hurry?’
‘Where’s the freezer? I need ice.’
‘In the kitchen, maybe. What’s up? Is your arse alight?’
‘Haha! Dani’s hurt her ankle.’
‘Badly?’
‘Not sure.’ He located the freezer and raked through the contents until he found some peas, which he wrapped in a tea towel. ‘Hopefully, just twisted it.’ The possibility that she was more seriously hurt knotted up his insides. She’d suffered enough in this life already. He objected to the idea of her even sustaining a minor scrape.
Xane headed back outside and sprinted along the woodland trail. He was a couple of hundred metres away when he realised Dani was no longer alone, but that Luthor had come across her and the pair were talking. Looking at the way Dani was positioned, iced peas weren’t going to be necessary. Also, maybe he didn’t want to crash their conversation. They were talking, actually talking as far as he could tell, and not in monosyllables. That had to be a good thing, or at least an improvement. He slowed to a trot, then a standstill.
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